


Hand On Your Hilt

by RenderedReversed



Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Sword Art Online Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, feat. erik's allergic reaction to them, there are a lot of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-21 21:49:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14294202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenderedReversed/pseuds/RenderedReversed
Summary: Erik dreams of Aincrad sunsets, sword fights, and T'Challa.





	Hand On Your Hilt

+ 

 

Erik's first thought waking up in the hospital is _thank fuck I'm alive_.

Maybe the others thought Kayaba would hold true to his word, but he sure as hell didn't. Who would go through the effort to trap 50,000 people in a play-or-die virtual reality game only to let them _leave_ after finishing 100 floors of dungeon controlled by a state-of-the-art AI?

Albeit there was a lot of _Lord of the Flies_ drama, yadda yadda yadda—yeah, but _still_. If it were him, he would've just killed everyone inside, fuck them for clearing _his_ game.

But Erik's alive, and so is—he has to assume—T'Challa.

 _T'Challa_.

There's chaos in the hospital as the surviving patients wake up. Erik can hear it, distantly, through the excessive amount of machinery he's hooked up to. There's barely enough strength in his body to curl his pinky finger, never mind reach up and pull off his NerveGear helmet, but it's okay.

They're alive.

 _Holy shit, they're alive_.

 _T'Challa_ , Erik thinks, and tries to picture the T'Challa he knows with Wakanda at his back, the mythical city of gold a halo about his head—

Maybe. Maybe it's possible. Maybe things will work out, or maybe they won't, and Erik will have to make the trek to his father's homeland alone, stand before his uncle and aunt and cousin in a cold, vibranium throne room and declare himself for the first time— _second_ time to T'Challa—in his accented, fading Xhosa:

_I am N'Jadaka, son of N'Jobu!_

The thought doesn't give him nearly as much pleasure as it once did.

There are nurses, now, and doctors too, crowded around his bed and the beds around him. He tries to look at them, tries to make out what they're saying, but he can't. It's too much.

Erik falls asleep thinking about the look on T'Challa's face, the way he'd reached for him, the way Aincrad had shattered but T'Challa—for just a second longer—had stayed.

 _Ball's in your court now, cuz,_ Erik thinks. _Come find me, if you can._

 

+

 

Erik dreams.

 

+

 

Whistling Peak is the tallest mountain on the 56th floor, only accessible through the sub-dungeon Rumbling Pass. There's golems, stone armadillos, something that distinctly looks like Graveler from Pokémon, and a shit-ton of other annoying mobs to get through, but they go.

He and T'Challa, they go.

They get ambushed by a flock of harpies on the way through the Pass. It's a tough battle, the sort that gets Erik pulling out all the stops as he impales two with his longsword, flings them at a third, and slashes all three with a 4-hit Sword Skill.

T'Challa, meanwhile, has finished his half of the battlefield as well. They regroup and settle under a stone overhang, shoulders pressed together as they down their health potions and catch their breath.

"According to the shopkeeper, it should be right up ahead," T'Challa says, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "There is only the dungeon boss left."

Erik throws his head back and laughs breathlessly. "Heard that one before, T. This better be one killer sunset you takin' me to."

"If only I could have shown you the memory fragment at the shop," T'Challa says, wistful. "It almost rivaled those of my homeland."

"Yeah?" Erik says. The cooldown on the potion's almost done. "I got pretty high standards for sunsets."

T'Challa shakes his head, nudging his shoulder. When Erik looks over, he sees the rudest, most attractive curve of a smile hanging at the corner of T'Challa's mouth. It's very unfair. Erik feels so personally attacked, he's thinking he might just have to kiss it off—

"So I have heard," T'Challa says. "Will the best sunset in Aincrad do for you?"

"I'll settle for it," Erik hears himself say, "but your reputation's on the line now."

T'Challa laughs and Erik thinks, by god, it's impossible to make him any more attractive than that, biting his lip all coy and shit, looking at Erik like he wouldn't want Erik to be anyone else in the entire world—wouldn't want to be stuck with anyone else in the entire world in this death game—

And fuck him sideways, but Erik thinks he feels the same.

"Let's go," T'Challa murmurs, "The food will expire if we wait too long."

He gets up in one smooth motion and starts walking again. Erik pauses, staring, and then,

"Wait, food? You cooked? Yo T, get back here!"

The boss of the Rumbling Pass sub-dungeon is Grimbel the Demon Goat. It's got six legs, ash-covered horns, red eyes like something out of a horror movie, and summons mountain lions from the seven layers of Hell to protect it. Without the proper techniques, it's as hard to get past as a Field Boss, but this isn't his and T'Challa's first rodeo.

They slay the beast with half their health bars left, clearing the way up Whistling Peak in tandem.

The closer they get, the more curious Erik grows. T'Challa's been hyping up this sight from the beginning, and he wants to know what's so amazing about it. Aincrad's got rolling hills, flower gardens, ancient waterfalls and rushing rivers in excess—every turn of the head is a new snapshot for a postcard. So what makes this one so special?

By the time they make it to the summit, the sun's already low in the sky. As he looks out over the horizon, Erik can see all the landmarks of the 56th floor—the slabs of upturned rock by the Rocky Mountains of Pani Village, jutting into the sky like memorial flags for players long past; the thick layer of white mist stretching across miles of mountain range on either side of the valley; the top of Foghorn Falls, which spills out into the longest river on the 56th floor, Alpine River.

It feels like he's standing on top of the world.

"Wait a sec, did you really bring an entire picnic up here?"

T'Challa, seated on a blanket spread with a veritable feast in front of him, has the gall to grin. "The durability will drop to zero if you do not come eat."

"You made _pudding_?" Erik has never sat down so fast in his life.

"Do not say I have never done anything for you."

"'Scuse me, I save your ass on a daily basis. Y'aint got nothin' over me, T," Erik retorts. He serves himself several spoonfuls of rice, a few assorted kebabs, curry, and some sort of flatbread. And the pudding. He takes the entire container of pudding for himself.

T'Challa muffles his snort behind a hand. Erik's not going to call him out on it—he's got more important things to do, like stuff his face before everything disappears.

They watch the sunset exactly like this, high on food, drink, and laughter. And when the food and drink are gone, the laughter turned to quiet appreciation, Erik wonders if this is what his father meant when he called Wakandan sunsets the most beautiful on Earth.

He and T'Challa fall asleep beneath the stars, a little closer than they were before.

  

+

  

Before SAO, Erik's lived years of his life in the hellhole known as the American Foster System. Three years after that, he's free and alive and ready to get back into a world he lowkey never thought he'd see again. The things he experienced in Aincrad should be nothing—a pebble in a pond, a blade of grass in a meadow. Insignificant.

As it turns out, it's not that simple.

Erik's hand keeps twitching.

He goes for a weapon that isn't there.

One time he'd woken up at 3AM, looked around and couldn't find a second bed. He'd reached out on instinct, then, swiping down in the space in front of him to open up his message window. Maybe T'Challa's out for a midnight walk. Hazily, Erik thinks he'll join him, even moves to send the message.

But it's not there.

There are other things. Physical therapy's part of his schedule now, mandatory for every SAO survivor. He keeps thinking he can do more than he actually can, twist his body in impossible ways and move at a near inhuman speed.

Sometimes he swears he manages it, moving through the Sword Skill action like the steps are a divination carved into his bones. Other times he fails, and it's worse than before.

He thinks about T'Challa often, and wonders if the Wakandan version of physical therapy is any better.

 

+

 

The thing about Sword Art Online is, it's a sandbox—a sandbox inside a nuclear bomb shelter, maybe, but a sandbox it is. No one gets out, and no one gets in.

What happened inside Aincrad stays inside Aincrad, but ain't no one say they're quite ever the same again.

People killed in SAO. People saw other people _be killed_ in SAO. And when all's said and done, when all the faces come out of the game and into reality again, everybody knows who's who—except for the rest of world, that is.

They were known as the red guild Laughing Coffin, and eight months after they caused the first murders in SAO history, the Clearers—made up of the biggest guilds and the strongest players—banded together and decided to wipe them out.

The crusader party was made up of fifty high-leveled players. There were guild members from Knights of the Blood, Fuurinkazan, Divine Dragon Alliance—and solo players, too, like the Black Swordsman. He and T'Challa had also been recruited.

T'Challa says it would be his honor to go, part of his responsibility, his duty as a Clearer, and Erik can't fucking leave him on his own— _they're a team, a partnership, god damn_ —so he goes, too.

Erik remembers.

 

+

 

Erik dreams. 

  

+

 

Ambushed, the entire battle is a complete, utter mess. He keeps an awareness of where T'Challa is, but that's the only one—Erik can't afford anything else, doesn't even really _care_ about anyone else.

His blade clashes with another's; they parry. Erik dodges the thrown dagger, strikes again with his own. These players aren't hesitant to kill—they've trained, they're hungry for it, they'd throw away their lives for the thrill.

But Erik's better.

He manages to catch the other player off guard and disarms him, flinging his sword several feet away and slicing through the entire expanse of his chest with his longsword. While others in the crusader party might hesitate, Erik doesn't. Erik knows they can't afford to—that's why they're here, after all, to stop Laughing Coffin from killing more players, players they need to clear the game.

They ain't gonna stop with just a _please and thank you_ —the only permanence around here is death.

It's his first kill, his second, his third, fourth; they all run together, they all stay apart. He sees their hooded faces and the expressions they make when he runs them through, some horrified, a higher number of them batshit insane. You don't get into the Laughing Coffin elites unless you enjoy this shit—this manslaughter.

Erik's hands are shaking. He grips his sword tighter, fights even harder. He's seen them kill the crusader members too hesitant to strike a finishing blow—it's either him or them, and fuck it all, _he's_ going to be the one leaving here alive when it all plays out.

And then, just like that, too long and too fast, it's over.

There are twenty Laughing Coffin members dead. Eleven of their crusaders are gone.

Erik sheathes his sword and meets back up with T'Challa. He doesn't know if he's killed anyone, but probably—yeah, probably. There's a look on his face he's never seen before, ruing and stone-faced all at once. He looks like he needs a drink.

He looks like Erik, only with clawed, shaking hands kept close at his side.

T'Challa looks at him. T'Challa looks _behind him_ , his eyes widen, and—

"N'Jadaka!"

Erik's already sheathed his weapon, but T'Challa hasn't.

There's a knife in T'Challa's shoulder and Erik can see his health bar dropping in the upper left-hand side of his vision. It stops a little less than a quarter left and he can barely breathe. T'Challa—he can only see his back, but T'Challa's got his hand through the player's gut, dug right through with his claws, one part of a Sword Skill just completed.

The rest follows through.

He sees him wrench out and kick the body back, but it's already dissolving into polygons by then. There's no blood on his hands. It was an instant kill—the guy hadn't had much health left to begin with, and T'Challa—

T'Challa turns around. His expression is—

He looks at Erik like—

Maybe he'll say—

"Are you alright, N'Jadaka?" he asks. When Erik manages a soft, 'yeah', T'Challa gives him a wan smile. "Good."

"Should be asking you that," Erik says. He takes a step forward and doesn't know how one step became five but then he's there, standing right in front of T'Challa, shoving a health crystal at him and demanding he use it so he can pull the fucking knife out, fuck, stupid, _dodge the fucking knife next time you dumbass—_

T'Challa doesn't even look at his wound. He just looks at Erik, obediently uses the crystal, and then keeps looking at Erik like he hopes he never goes away. Like he can't bear it if he goes away. Like he doesn't know what he'd do if he—

Maybe Erik's projecting a little, because he can't stop looking either. And if he stays close, if their shoulders are pushed together as they walk out, if T'Challa grips his wrist and Erik keeps his hands clenched close to his side, one hand on his hilt, then no one else can blame them because everyone else is doing it, too.

There are twenty-one Laughing Coffin members dead at the end of the raid. Thirty-nine out of fifty crusaders walk out of the dungeon alive. 

 

+

 

Erik had been a few months into grad school when SAO had gone up, and now he's three years behind schedule with physical therapy and intensive counseling being integrated into his daily life.

Erik's not going to say it helps, but the counseling touches on some other things, too, from before SAO. His initial reaction is to recoil from it—his past is his motivation, his drive, something priceless that he won't let anyone steal from him—

But he also thinks of T'Challa, tries to reconcile the image of a spoiled prince with the soft-hearted warrior who'd gut a man for him, and he thinks, yeah, he's not wrong—T'Challa's naïve and a little too soft and _privileged_ , by god, he's privileged to hell and back, but that's not all he is either. There's a dimension to him that'd been invisible before.

He's _good_ —good in the heart. A good man who's grown up around everything he could ever wish for, yeah, but a good man who can't stay idle at the sight of injustice, who will throw himself into turmoil and duty and leadership because it would be _his honor_ —T'Challa's words, not his—and that's. That's different from what he thought before.

So Erik talks. 

 

+

 

He thinks a lot, too.

When he's finally cleared to go back to school, Erik thinks a lot. A whole and a half of him is playing catch up, trying to remember what the fuck he was working on three years ago, going over and _correcting_ what he was working on three years ago because even three years behind, Erik's fuckin' brilliant and he knows it.

He spends days in the lab. Goes to physical therapy. Goes to counseling. Goes back to the lab, rinse and repeat.

Everyone tries to talk about it except him.

He gets questions. He gets looks. Some asshole swings an arm around his shoulder and says,

"Hey, heard you played the death game. How many people did you kill?"

Erik nearly crushes his hand.

"Sorry 'bout that, still not used to this whole moderate-your-strength thing," Erik says, baring his teeth with a grin. "No hard feelings, right?"

But even when he takes care of one, there are always more.

He's not the only SAO survivor at MIT, either. There were a handful of others who won the lottery for a copy and a NerveGear to play it with. He sees them around, but he doesn't really know them—they weren't Clearers, at least.

But they know of _him_. They see him and nod. One girl—Japanese—walks up to him and bows. She thanks him in not so many words, just a soft _thank you_ because it's like some unspoken rule: don't talk about what happened—they've only survived it if they don't speak.

So Erik nods back. And they don't talk again.

 

+

 

It's lonely.

There's a T'Challa-shaped hole in his life and _it's lonely_.

 

 +

 

Sometimes he's relieved, too, that T'Challa's not there. Erik's not sure what he'd say to him. He'd only learned who he was on the last day, the night before they cleared the 100th floor, and even though Erik _thought about it_ , less than twenty-four hours really isn't enough time to think about any life-changing decisions.

He'd given him his name. Identity. Told him to find him, because he can't lie to himself—he wants to see T'Challa again, can feel himself wanting it like an instinct honed talent honed skill. T'Challa sensors—some stupid shit like that.

Erik laughs because he knows it's true.

But the truth is, he doesn't know what will happen after. He doesn't know what will happen after T'Challa finds him and he's scared—because T'Challa will, Erik knows, because T'Challa will want to find him as much as Erik wants him with him, because T'Challa is that type of person, because T'Challa is loyal and he's loyal to _N'Jadaka_ , his _'til death do them part_ partner of three bloody, long-ass years.

Erik wonders why that doesn't make him happy.

He thinks about the throne and who sits on it. The man who murdered his father is alive and well, he has his son back with him and everything he wants and loves is fine. T'Chaka got back T'Challa because of Erik. Not _only_ because of Erik, no, but Erik's saved T'Challa's ass enough times that he deserves his name tattooed on it. T'Chaka owes him that and he doesn't even know it.

(Or maybe he does, if T'Challa told him.)

And when his nights get quiet, when he's alone in the lab or eating lunch or kept awake by another memory-turned-nightmare, he thinks about that a lot.

If T'Challa died, how that would break T'Chaka. If T'Challa died, maybe T'Chaka would die, too, from grief or some shit, and then he'd mosey on over and take that throne that is his birthright, easy-as-you-please. But if that happened, T'Challa would be dead, and that's one thing Erik doesn't want to think about.

He doesn't know how to think about it, really.

Happy, sad, angry, scared, none of those words are it—none of those words are the tight feeling in his chest, the way his hand twitches for a weapon that's not there, the swipe of his finger as he looks for T'Challa's health bar, always in the upper left-hand corner of his vision, not there.

He hopes, rashly, that T'Challa's going through the same thing he is, because it'd only serve him right for making Erik so attached.

  

+

 

Erik dreams. 

 

+

He's in Aincrad again. A field of flowers stretches as far as the eye can see in front of him. It's like a snapshot from his memories—47th floor, Hill of Memories.

Erik reaches for his sword and he finds it.

He walks along the red brick path for a long time. There aren't any monsters on his way, but he still keeps his sword drawn and at the ready. It's a good weight in his hand—heavy, an extension of his body that he'd lost in the trip back to reality.

He keeps walking until he reaches the end.

He knows, theoretically, what's there. The spawning point of the Pneuma Flower is a well-known spot, half for its beauty and half for its use, to revive Tamed Monsters in the presence of a Beast Tamer. But there at the end of the path isn't the spawn point shrine that he's expecting—

Instead there's T'Challa, hands clasped behind his back and turned away from him.

Erik pauses.

But it's _T'Challa_. Erik can't stay away forever. And since this is a dream, there aren't any consequences, right?

"Hey," Erik says, "Wassup, cuz?"

T'Challa turns around. He's dressed down like a civilian, wearing clothes that'd be suicide in an actual dungeon with monsters in it—a tunic, collar undone, and simple trousers.

Erik's suddenly aware more than ever of his _own_ dress—the sword in his hands, the armor he wore on the day of the final battle. It feels…unequal, and leaves him flatfooted.

T'Challa looks at him curiously before smiling. "N'Jadaka. I was not expecting to see you here."

"No?" Erik tilts his head. Odd for a dream, if the person he dreamed up wasn't expecting to see him. "Me neither."

T'Challa makes an inconclusive noise. "I was looking for something," he says, "but upon arriving here, I found I could not remember."

"Looking for something other than me? Careful, I might think you've forgotten me," Erik jokes. It's half a joke, half one of those dreaded thoughts of his, when he's all alone and there's no message window to pull up.

Maybe T'Challa knows, because he looks at Erik and says with all seriousness, "Never. I would never forget you, N'Jadaka."

The tension in his chest uncoils. Erik breathes out and it's shaky, so shaky he's afraid T'Challa will call him out on it, but nothing remotely like that happens.

Instead, T'Challa says, "I remember now, what I was looking for."

"Yeah? And what's that?"

"Home."

Erik startles. "Ain't you there already?"

"Wakanda is my home," T'Challa says, dipping his head, "it has my people…my friends…family… I missed it, these past few years. But now that I am back-"

Erik knows what he's going to say before he says it.

"There is another place I miss," T'Challa confesses quietly, "that is also 'home.' And I cannot find it here."

"I feel that," Erik says. "Damn. Fuck." He exhales harshly through his nose and looks up at the sky.

It's a perfect Aincrad blue.

"I miss you," T'Challa says.

Erik tightens his grip on his sword and looks back at him. "Then why the fuck you haven't done anything about it yet?"

"You think I have not?"

"This is the first time I've seen your face in _six fucking months_ ," Erik snaps. "Thought I'd forget what you looked like by now—maybe exaggerated that dumbass look on your face. Nah, still _exactly_ the same."

"Then are you ready to be found?"

Fuck.

_Fucking hell._

Erik slams his blade down between the bricks. "Now you care about my feelings? _Now_ you care about whether I'm ready or not? Where the fuck was this when you were tellin' me you were the god damn prince of Wakanda?"

T'Challa bows his head.

"Nah—you look at me. You _look at me_. Why do you have to be—if you were literally anyone else in this god damn world, Russian or some fuck, Buddha, some tribe leader in the middle of Zimbabwe, I don't care-"

"If I were anyone else, I would not be me," T'Challa says.

It's true. It's true and it pisses Erik the fuck off, but it's true.

"N'Jadaka."

Erik looks up.

"I want to bring you home," T'Challa says. "Let me bring you home."

He can't.

"It ain't home," Erik says instead.

And it's funny, because hasn't he always thought of Wakanda that way? His father's homeland, a place of riches and miracles that his blood tells him he belongs to. It's the place he wants to go, has been aiming his whole life to go. It's the home he's never been to, the home his father never got to return to.

But there's another place inside his heart, another place he can't go to but it doesn't matter since he's been there before, felt it and lived it and saw it all fall apart.

In Aincrad—with T'Challa—

—Not the prince, not his cousin, just _his_ —

That was home, too.

"We can make one," T'Challa says.

"It ain't that easy," Erik tells him. "You can't just—you can't just expect everything to work itself out."

"Yes—I know."

"I got things—things I been wanting to say to you for a while. You, that dad of yours, Wakanda…"

"And I will listen."

Erik almost laughs at how earnest this dream T'Challa is. Instead, he says, "And you'll wait, too, is that you what you were gonna say? That you'd wait until I was done with my shit—wait until I _asked_ you to go?"

"Would you prefer I not?"

Erik shakes his head hopelessly. "You're terrible at this," he says. "Of all the shitty people in the world, and I get you. Fuck, alright, fine. You wanna do this? Give me some kind of sign. I ain't tearing down doors for you—you better hope I don't, it ain't gonna be pretty if I do—so show me."

_Show me that you care about what happens to Erik Stevens._

Slowly, T'Challa nods.

"You have my word."

 

+

 

When Erik wakes up, he can't quite remember what he'd dreamed about. It's the sort that's vivid on waking, and then fades the minute he sits up and starts preparing for the day.

Well, whatever. Probably not important anyway.

A day later, he gets a text on his phone.

It's a number, and an offer, all in one.

Erik saves it in his contacts under _that one dumbass cuz_.

After a second's worth of thought, he adds a peach emoji to the end of it. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> A few notes:
> 
> \- In this AU, SAO received a regional beta test and a global release. Instead of the initial 10,000, there were 50,000 copies released, as per the web version. Certain copies were given away via lottery (though there were still copious amounts of lines), which is how Erik got his.
> 
> \- Timelines suck, but I tried to keep with the SAO canon for that (fudging the year of BP, which I'm not entirely sure on anyway).
> 
> \- The major change with SAO canon is that Heathcliff is not defeated by Kirito on 75F--his original plan follows through, where he waits until 95F to reveal himself and there is an epic showdown on 100F, the leaders of which are naturally Kirito and Asuna. I estimated 76F - 100F to take place in the timespan of a year--mostly because it gives me a nice number to work with--hence, three years to clear the game instead of the original two.
> 
>  
> 
> I had a lot of fun writing this!!! Though I admit it took me frustratingly long to familiarize myself with SAO-verse, haha. It's been a long time since I've read it.
> 
> As for PoV decisions, I love Erik a lot, but he's a difficult character to write--he's got a lot of depth, and there's a ton of ways to explore it. I hope I managed to get at least a little of him! Though, well, practice makes perfect, right?


End file.
